#and i don't think as an american you can be a responsible global citizen without acknowledging that

[pjharvey]

like in addition to ushering it an absolute nightmare world for lgbt people, especially trans people, and anyone who can get pregnant, especially black women, and like countless other things a vote for biden is a vote against the worst possible outcome for the climate imaginable. you can't be a single issue voter. we don't live in a single issue society.

[catsaysmlem]

I don't think its 'stupid' to deal with the bad along with the good in our favourite characters though. The movies are problematic and so are the characters and some fans don,t want to deal with that but some do...

I'm assuming this is about this post. I've been putting off replying to this but I have some time right now. putting it under the read more because it's rambly and long.

Regarding the movies being problematic, no shit and also please find me a piece of media that isn't problematic. regarding the 'military propaganda' aspect of it specifically, not only is there very little jingoism especially in the second movie and its much more about cool fighter jets and their cool pilots and cool action sequences with the US military just being the trappings for it, whatever military propaganda exists in top gun is as toothless as the anti military spiels I see against these movies online. That is to say the existence of top gun has as little effect and impact on the reality of the USA's military and economic stranglehold on the world as the virtue signalling of the crowd that's usually handwringing about said military propaganda online.

And that's exactly why this criticism of the top gun movie rings so hollow to me because no one crying about the military propaganda in these movies ever explains what exactly the material consequence of all this alleged military propaganda has been in the real world. If these two movies didn't exist would it in any way change the reality of US military dominance over the rest of the world. Did the existence of these movies, especially the second one since it was an even bigger success and more recent cause any kind of significant pro war/right wing mobilization around it? If the alleged propaganda doesn't seem to have had any effect irl except to entertain people globally over the last summer, what exactly was the deep sinister propaganda here.

Not to mention I usually see most of the virtue signalling coming from americans themselves which just reeks of the same old american hubris to me because both movies were GLOBAL hits. do you think the rest of the world which is actually impacted by the activities of the US military has less critical thinking skills than you? They need you to hand hold them through the pitfalls of us military propaganda? If they can enjoy the movies maybe you definitely can without having a moral crisis about it.

And actually american libs need to stop harping about military propaganda in movies in general. At some point you will simply have to accept that it's not hollywood propaganda that's brainwashing your people into joining up and take responsibility for your utter collective apathy about the crimes of your government abroad and what it costs the rest of the world to keep your country and your citizens on top. All american citizens benefit from US' military dominance over the world. You're telling me after seeing all the invasions committed by your country and the devastation it's caused in the global south, you're still susceptible to american military propaganda?

And susceptible not to actual blatant jingoism but to fucking top gun which is about as inoffensive as it is possible to get with no depictions anywhere of identifiable enemies or geographical terrains?

Keeping the military propaganda shit aside, regarding the movies, especially the first movie, being problematic in that it had scenes, jokes and dialogues that didn't age well - yeah that's something you just have to deal with with older movies. I think it speaks of a very limited exposure to media if older media is so difficult for you to critically consume that you aren't able to distinguish between media which had stuff in it that didn't age well but which can be severed from the core story and media where the stuff that didn't age well forms the inextricable core of the story and cannot be cut away.

Top gun quite obviously falls in the former category. You can very easily separate the stuff that didn't age well as a product of its time because it has no actual bearing on the core story. Obviously you are free to not do that and build your whole character analysis around those bits of the story but to me that's the kind of edginess that's deeply boring. And reeks of insecurity in that the fans most likely to do this are the ones who just have to make sure everyone knows they are smart and morally correct and aware of the moral failings of the media they're consuming unlike the rest of us apparently.

Regarding Ice specifically - quite simply the story doesn't work if you see him as the bad guy or even to a lesser degree if you see him as someone with negative intentions. The whole movie maverick and ice are moving towards reaching an understanding. ice doesn't have to undergo any massive character development to get there, maverck does. If you think ice was jealous or malicious or hypocritical or whatever at the start then by necessity you have to think that he was all those things right till the end since he undergoes no drastic character changes. And if you think he was all those things at the end then it renders the entire climax and the big resolution of the movie meaningless. Which is just not a good way to analyse a story.

Like not only does a reading of ice as someone with malicious intentions not hold true because he doesn't say or do anything to justify such a reading (the ONE thing that gets brought up constantly is that he's some kind of a cold bastard for referring to Cougar as 'was a good man' which is nuts because I refer to my ex-coworkers in the past tense too it's not that deep. The only reason people pay any attention to that is because Maverick saw an opening there to quip back at ice, not because there's anything actually abnormal about how ice is referring to someone who has permanently left the system ice is going to remain in for the rest of his life), it also goes against what the story is clearly showing.

So yes you can explore the darker aspects of characters you like all you want but this specific negative reading of this specific character on the basis of the movie being problematic or him saying something vaguely problematic is stupid. and lazy in that to me it feels like reaching for the lowest hanging fruit of negative characterisation to be edgy.

[filthforfriends]

Hi! So, maybe not the band itself, but the fanclub said the staff (I'm assuming - Ma's staff) asked them to help stop spreading the cover, and Sony deleted that tweet, so I think it would be nice if you could delete/save that post for later 😅

I totally understand this position and I actually thought about it a lot before posting so here's my take. The band are too relevant for this to go away even if fans delete the image because the media already will have a hold of it and can just get the image from each others websites. So if thats going to happen anyways, why shouldn't people that celebrate the band bring positivity to it use the album cover. It creates more hype for the single and the band is at a point where they've spent this past year, hundreds or hours, meticulously building momentum. You could hear and see at Global Citizen and the Genius Interview that they're fucking tired. If the single does really well they could permanently break into the American market.

The way Damiano talks about haters you can hear that he subscribes to the "all press is good press idea." Like the controversy of this is going to make the single do better, especially because its coming out so soon people will still be interested. So if the image is already out there being spread and bringing attention to Maneskin, and the band hasn't said anything to the contrary, why shouldn't we help boost the single? I'm not saying the leak doesn't suck and wasn't disrespectful to the band. Someone should be fired.But what's done is done so all we can do is follow the bands lead. Right now, instead of asking people not to post the cover they've released three more images from the campaign for the single.

I don't mean to sound like a dick but we heard from the fan club that they heard from staff that may or may not Maneskin's staff who may or may not share the opinion of the band is a little too vague for me. If he band makes that call, the image is gone and I'll apologize. But for now I think we should get as much attention, as much hype, as many eyes on this single as possible so it has the best chance of success since its out next month. You could even argue that the leak is a blessing in disguise because now people who didn't even know that band before have an opinion.

You don't have to agree with me at all and should act according to what you think is ethical in this situation. I don't want people to think I posted the album cover without careful consideration. Considering the band hasn't said anything, I hope that we can reserve judging each other's character until they actually don't condone reposting. I'm not going to argue with anyone. Thank you to this anon for being neutral and gracious with their words I really appreciate it and I hope I did the same in response.